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About That Caravan in Mexico … | Video Worth Watching

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About that caravan in Mexico …

Back on April 1st, Trump tweeted that [it’s] “Getting more dangerous. “Caravans” coming. Republicans must go to Nuclear Option to pass tough laws NOW. NO MORE DACA DEAL!”

So who are these people that so terrify Trump? For ten years the organization Pueblo Sin Fronteras has been working with Central American refugees and migrants to provide humanitarian aid. This year one effort Pueblo Sin Fronteras is making is to help the migrants tell their own story. Here is a brief video made several weeks ago at the beginning of April.   [Read more…]

How Border Walls Disrupt Nature | Video Worth Watching

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Vox’s Christophe Haubursin and Eliza Barclay present a fascinatingly documented examination of how border walls impact the natural environment.   [Read more…]

ACLU Criticizes Board of Supervisors’ Decision to Support the Trump Lawsuit Against California

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Edward Sifuentes / American Civil Liberties Union of San Diego & Imperial Counties

On Tuesday, April 17, a majority of the San Diego County Board of Supervisors decided to support the Trump administration’s lawsuit against the State of California. The lawsuit, filed by the Department of Justice, targets three California statutes, including the California Values Act that serves to keep state and local law enforcement agencies out of the business of mass detentions and mass deportations.

Supervisors Gaspar, Horn and Jacob voted to file an amicus brief in support of the lawsuit at the “first available opportunity” (most likely on appeal). Supervisor Cox voted against the proposal. Supervisor Roberts was absent from today’s meeting, but issued a statement last week urging his colleagues to “stay out of this issue.”

The following is the ACLU of San Diego & Imperial Counties’ response to today’s action:   [Read more…]

Activists Protest County Supervisors’ Anti-Immigrant Scheme

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According to Indivisible activists, about 100 to 150 people rallied this morning at a press conference held on the steps of the County Administration Building to protest opposition to the anticipated Supervisor vote on whether to oppose Brown’s sanctuary laws.

After the rally – where a number of people spoke – the crowd went upstairs to the Supervisor’s chambers on the third floor. There were so many people that the spill-over room had to be used.

  [Read more…]

Protests Set as County Supervisors Ready Endorsement of Trump’s War on Immigrants

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On Tuesday, April 17, the San Diego County Board of Supervisors will meet in closed session to consider endorsing the Trump administration’s lawsuits challenging California’s legislation offering some minimal protections for immigrants.

While the Supes action is mostly symbolic, it is a statement of values. It is an affirmation of a cruel campaign waged by militarized forces, based on irrational fears, and drummed up by those who seek to disenfranchise all minorities as a means of building a political base.

Progressive organizations from throughout the region will rally at the County Administration building, starting at 8am. The weekly Indivisible protests outside Congressman Darrel Issa’s Vista office are moving downtown in solidarity.   [Read more…]

Art Students Use Light to Turn Trump’s Border Prototypes Into Art | Video Worth Watching

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This Voice of San Diego video by Adriana Heldiz features Southwestern College professor Perry Vasquez introducing us to highlights of an art project that incorporates the controversial border wall prototypes near the U.S.-Mexico border at Otay Mesa. The project was a collaboration among Vasquez’ students and two other local artists: Jill Holslin and Andrew Sturm.

Jill Holslin is also an occasional contributor to the San Diego Free Press and Perry Vasquez is the artist and illustrator for San Diego Free Press columnist Jim Miller’s latest publication: Last Days in Ocean Beach (City Works Press, 2018).   [Read more…]

Immigration Advocates Say Yes to California Values in Escondido As Trump Pumps Up His Base

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On Wednesday, the Escondido City Council is expected to vote on joining the Justice Department’s lawsuit to block the California Values Act and other state laws protecting immigrants.

The ACLU and immigration rights activists will hold a 3pm press conference, followed by an Indivisible-supported rally supporting the state law and the region’s immigrant community, which was recently targeted by ICE raids that arrested more than 100 residents.

The San Diego County Supervisors will meet in closed session on April 17 to join the lawsuit. The only event at the County building related to this vote at this point is in support of the Trump administration’s stance, organized by the Border Patriots, the same group of we’re-not-racists who’ve been targeting Chicano Park in recent months.   [Read more…]

2020 Census Citizenship Question Amounts to a ‘Sabotage’ of Democracy

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By Jake Johnson / Common Dreams

In a move denounced by immigrant rights advocates and legal experts as an effort to “undercount communities of color” that could have an enormous impact on the drawing of congressional districts, the Trump administration announced late Monday that the 2020 Census will ask respondents whether or not they are U.S. citizens.

“This is an attempt to racially rig the census,” argued Common Cause president Karen Hobert Flynn in a statement after the move was made public in a late-night press release by the Commerce Department. “An accurate census is essential in the redrawing of our congressional and legislative districts and budgeting decisions that impact our schools, hospitals, roads, and veterans.”

Shortly after the decision to include a citizenship question on the 2020 Census was announced, California Attorney General Xavier Beccera joined civil rights advocates in condemning the move and filed suit against the Trump administration, arguing that inclusion of the question is “not just a bad idea—it is illegal.”   [Read more…]

ACLU: Greyhound Must Stop Giving Border Patrol Permission to Conduct Bus Raids

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Greyhound buses, once a symbol of travel on America’s vast highways, have become rolling traps where U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents routinely board to unlawfully interrogate, detain and arrest passengers.

The agents, with the agreement of Greyhound, stage surprise boardings without warrants to question riders about their citizenship and travel plans. In many cases, all too reminiscent of police states, the agents demand to see a passenger’s “documents.”

The warrantless raids, which saw a rapid increase in the past year, are not only a blatant disregard of passengers’ constitutional rights, they are also clearly driven by racial profiling.   [Read more…]

Rapid Response Network Needed More Than Ever After Recent ICE Arrests

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By Edward Sifuentes

While much of the local media’s attention was focused on President Trump’s March 13 visit to the border wall prototypes in Otay Mesa, a team of ICE agents deployed throughout Escondido early the same morning and arrested 22 people.

The agents were allegedly targeting people who had deportation orders, but they also picked up undocumented immigrants who just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. In ICE jargon, those arrests are known as “collaterals.”

Later in the week, ICE announced the three-day operation netted a total 115 people, including seven in Imperial County. Most of them – 65 – had no criminal convictions.   [Read more…]

Attorney General Sessions Swoops into Sacramento to Denounce ‘Lawless Open Borders Radicals’

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Attorney General Jeff Sessions came to Sacramento for a media moment Wednesday morning, hoping to stoke support for a lawsuit destined for the Supreme Court aimed at overturning over state laws protecting immigrants.

He got a cool reception –polite applause– from what the Trump administration hoped would be a receptive audience, a meeting of the California Peace Officers Association at the Kimpton Sawyer Hotel.

Continuing the Trump administration’s assault on the truth, Sessions compared the sanctuary movement in California to secessionist and racist defiance in the South during the civil rights era.   [Read more…]

San Diego’s Rapid Response to ICE

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There can be no doubt that ICE raids at workplaces and in neighborhoods will once again become major activities in our area – top officials in ICE have said so.  After California’s Governor Brown signed a law limiting California law-enforcement officials’ cooperation with federal immigration authorities, Mr. Holman, a top ICW official warned, “California better hold on tight—they’re about to see a lot more deportation officers.”

Top ICE officials have also said that they intend to instill fear among all undocumented immigrants, to force “self- deportation”, and we see this is beginning to happen.  Fear is real when facing immediate, forced separation of families on a moment’s notice – without even knowing how to find loved ones – losing everything that residents have worked for sometimes for decades while here in the United States.

Those of us paying attention read of a Virginia mother was sent back to El Salvador after her 11 years in the United States unraveled because of a traffic stop. A Connecticut man with an American-born wife and children and no criminal record was deported back to Guatemala.  A workplace raid in California nets 6 workers that ICE was not looking for and now they face deportation back to Mexico.  150 more are reported arrested in the Bay Area in recent days.   [Read more…]

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